In war, everything new
turns instantly old.
Children without childhood.



Shell ✨🐚

Let it go.

a protest against emptiness?
the failure of forgetting the beginning of touch?
an unanswered question?
the sky inside the roots of trees?
the desert inside the heart of rain?
the dreams of the heat of the earth inside cold stones?
an uninterrupted dance of absence and semantics?
the memory of photons from the moment of conception?
the steam of bodies in the quiet air?

what if love is this cosmic urgency,
emergence with myriad faces,
a protest against the liveliness of
nothingness?

Ours is something
To be explained away;
I love you
But– I think to myself.
I love you
But– there will be a day I do not.
I love you
But– I do not know what love means.
I love you
But–

You gifted me a vase
Rose, iris, baby’s breath, chrysanthemum
In purples and pinks and whites
They wither quickly
Alongside the spider webs in my closet,
They crack and brown
Buried in the darkness of thick winter blankets,
Hidden within the folds
Of that green dress I wore
They rot.

I stay awake until
The old clock ticks in silence,
Sound bouncing off empty corners and into the abyss,
I unsheathe the vase from my closet and hold it up
To the yellow-orange ceiling light,
Blinds drawn tightly,
Damage control;
“Live, please, live. Just a little longer.”
I press my nose into it,
And baby’s breath becomes hemlock,
Iris into nightshade,
Chrysanthemums now oleander,
And the roses–
Stay roses,

I press my nose into it,
Tears replenish dried water,
Feeding the poison,
Dying, slowly, in darkness.

I love you
But– this cannot be love.
I love you
But– I have not sacrificed,
Have not pained or labored or suffered,
I love you
But– If this is love
Then what have I known?

Ours was something
Of swimming pools and summer air,
White boy indie guitar,
Art museums and coffee,
Flowers, book stores, paint drops on your cheek,
It was leather car seats and upstairs lofts,
The frantic finding of fabric
As doors creaked open.

I bury my face into purple roses,
I swear they smell of you,
“I love you, I love you, I love you,”
A million times,
“I love you, I love you, I love you,”
Until the words melt
Into a meaningless sludge,
No one to hear them,
Sound bouncing off empty corners and into the abyss,
I love you
And–
I am leaving you.

a yellow rose winds to the skies,
blossoming, letting soft petals fall to
the cidery earth, blushing in
the caverns of the sweet-flowering day,

inspired like the greek
sun-god helios but
drawn out of rhododendron
and apple, drawn out of love.

a thousand years of summer,
the wolf, the thin mouth of sky,
a diamond bumble bee, the
gifts of a stolen sun,

shaken out like a rattle snake,
the broken angles of death,
the lost side of each word,
with all its intentions and promises -

fallen to the floor, like an apple,
or a blind mole loving
the soil, the dry earth,
the faded parchment sun,

or a rock of ice, in a tangy glass,
where the summer sun
grows roots and shoots,
shadow domes and leafy golden skies.